Topher Morrison
cross posted at
Now
that everyone’s feet have hit the ground and Romney has reasserted his “front
runner status” (as the mainstream media enjoys to browbeat) some like Bill Kristol
of the Weekly Standard are musing about another Santorum surge; praying, hoping
for Bush 2.0. There is only one
problem. Although the GOP is
potentially dethroning one of the most radical presidencies since FDR or LBJ,
as Kristol laments,
their Florida primary turnout was actually down 12% from 2008.
How can Barak Hussein Obama, the
Premier of Polarization, not light a fire under the GOP? They better figure it out. In Florida, Mitt Romney may have been
able to outspend Newt Gingrich by a 4 to 1 margin; that will not be the case
against Barack’s billion-dollar war chest. Romney will need a lot more than millions in milquetoast
rhetoric to revitalize this evidently anemic party.
To be fair, this may have merely
been the Florida GOP, Iowa’s turnout after all was record
breaking, but was that because of Romney or something else? Maybe it was the ugliness of the
campaign that kept Floridians at home, but that most assuredly will not change
as the Democrats plan to make this election more about character
than content. Perhaps it was
the nature of the caucus.
While the Florida Slugfest was
grabbing national attention Ron Paul as usual was quiet, but diligent. He was the first to release ads in
Minnesota and Nevada and able to stay clear of the mud he was left alone to
continue his long-term caucus strategy, which is proving fruitful regardless of
the what the Media Masters tell you.
Ron Paul claims he is 3rd
in delegate count and supported: here
and here even though the MSM has
him in 4th: here, here and here. Why the discrepancy? Free information sites like Wikipedia
and The Green Papers offer a little more insight into the fog that often
surrounds the U.S. electoral system.
There are, for example,
differences in “soft” versus “hard” delegates and “pledged” or “bound” delegates
versus “unpledged” or “not bound” delegates. It essentially boils down to
reporting projected versus formally pledged delegates. The MSM prefers the latter. In the end it’s more than just the
ballot box, as Politico’s James Hohmann points out:
The primary and caucus “…states
don’t award delegates on the day they hold votes, instead apportioning
delegates at local party meetings, where Paul’s camp believes its superior
organization can help it capture a majority that their candidate may not have
won outright on election day.”
Spontaneous organization and zeal as I have mentioned is the
bread and butter of Ron Paul’s Guerilla
Grassroots.
As
the Christian Science Monitor points out Ron Paul with this odd strategy may in
fact win more delegates this coming month than Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich combined!
The reason? It is what Romney, Gingrich and Santorum
all lack and what Ron Paul is in large supply – liberal honey.
As evidenced in Iowa,
Ron Paul pulls from the top of the political spectrum. This may seem odd to hear, however,
many now understand there is a false dichotomy afoot when someone tries to
paint another as either left or right.
It is why we see Americans leaving the GOP and Democratic parties in
droves. Fundamentally the real
dichotomy is authority versus liberty, everything else is retail politics.
Ron Paul is above the fray in this
respect pulling and converting ostensibly progressive and conservative
independents into his libertarian coalition of sustainable governance.
The most attractive characteristic of Paul’s liberal honey is it’s cheap
enough for a conservative, but sweet enough for a liberal.
Take ending the War on Drugs for
instance. It promotes personal
responsibility with respect to treatment and education while simultaneously
emancipating billions of taxpayer dollars dedicated to massive incarceration,
property seizures and interdiction from the grip of big government. Legalizing and regulating drugs like
alcohol and tobacco as they once were would serve the single biggest blow to
drug cartels and inner city gangs sustained by the black market’s inflated
prices. Moreover, the Drug War disproportionally
affects minorities whom notoriously side with Democrats. Ron Paul’s plan fundamentally
undermines this entitlement.
Liberal
honey most importantly allows a left leaning voter to swallow some of Ron
Paul’s economic medicine some view as austere. His stance on the Federal Reserve for example is as
bipartisan as it gets, over 75% of voters want a full audit of the Fed. The idea there is a coalition of private
banks dictating how much money to print for themselves, leading to trickle down
inflation, is appalling to most Americans. Ron Paul retains nearly exclusive rights to this idea – End
The Fed.
Local
governance looms large in our political future too. The famous liberal idiom “think globally, act locally”
is about to be fulfilled and added to the libertarian lexicon – “think
globally, govern locally.” For far
too long central planning has concentrated the power of government in
Washington D.C. at the expense of our states, counties and townships. Ron Paul’s efforts to allow the states
to decide on abortion, gay marriage and education allowing everyone to more
easily vote with their feet by rekindling our 50 democratic laboratories.
While
the anti-war movement was eviscerated after the election of our Peace President
Barack Obama, Ron Paul’s plans to close our foreign bases and return our troops
home resonates with independents, paleo-conservatives and progressives
alike. Its police state ancillary,
the technological and industrial blowback from our militant adventurism, is on
Ron Paul’s chopping block too.
Ending the TSA, the Department of Homeland Security, fusion centers, and
curtailing Top
Secret America appeals to social libertarians and liberals alike.
